Sept. 30 – Yokohama – Interbrand published its “Best Global Brands” and Nissan has risen eight places on the list to the 65th position, also seeing its brand value grow 25%, according to the New York-based firm.

Nissan's Roel de Vries

Roel de-Vries, Corporate Vice President for Global Marketing, welcomed the news, but said it’s a never-ending challenge.

“To be 65th on the Best Global Brands list is great news for us. It’s the third year that we have a big increase – we were at 73 last year, 89 the year before, and before that we weren’t even on the list, so it’s great news. It’s showing that our brand efforts that we have at Nissan are really paying off.”

“Brand improvement doesn’t come from an action, or an individual, or an advertising campaign – it’s the effort of the total organization and what the customer eventually sees. It’s a combination of great products, good advertising, of course, and good messaging and communications, but also talking about vision for the future and technologies for the future.

“As a company, we manage to do stuff that really stands out, whether it is with Zero Emission – everybody knows our Nissan LEAF activities that are really paying off – or it’s on the race track – we’re into zero-emission racing. We’re also into racing and taking people to the track, or the advertising communication that we do in all of our markets all over the world for cars like the Nissan JUKE. It’s difficult to say where did it come from, but what we’re starting to see is that the team effort of our total company and total organization is starting to pay off and is becoming visible to the people out there.

“Brand improvement should always be at the core of what a company tries to do, so we will carry on our path. We’re not doing this because we want to be at a certain rank in a certain survey. We’re doing this because we believe it’s the right path to deliver the best cars and services to our customers, and because we believe it’s the road to profitability.

For us, until we’re No.1 – actually, we will never stop. I’m not going to make predictions as to where we want to be on this list or where we should be on this list. It’s an important measure, and it’s confirming that what we are doing is the right stuff, and we’ll keep on doing it.”